


The Shop Brat Life- Stick

by Princesszellie



Series: The Shop Brat Life [5]
Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Gen, Mechanic!AU Carshop!AU Pacific Rim
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-07
Updated: 2014-05-07
Packaged: 2018-01-23 20:53:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1579208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Princesszellie/pseuds/Princesszellie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chuck likes a challenge OR- We all have that ONE uncle we can con into anything....</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Part 5/? of the Shop Brat Life series of one shots based on my life as the boss's kid at a large car dealership.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Shop Brat Life- Stick

Lesson 1-

Chuck had begged and pleaded with his Uncle for weeks to teach him to drive standard. It had been an incessant campaign of whining and big green eyes of need and adoration. It had been a pain in the ass all around, but it had worked. Finally. Uncle Scott was usually pretty powerless against Charlie’s wiles, but he had resisted longer than usual. His reputation must have preceded him…again.

Oh well, it didn’t matter now. He was sitting pretty in the driver’s seat of Scott’s ratty old pickup truck itching to start. Uncle Scott however felt he was never going to be ready for this. Chuck’s super bright and excited smile was just too much for him, he had no idea how Herc and Angela dealt with this kind of pressure every day.

“Well, you gonna start her or what?” he asked his nephew.

“Aren’t you going to explain everything first?” Chuck asked slightly concerned.

“No. Do I look like your Father? We will learn as we go. Now this is different than Striker, put your foot on the clutch, put it in neutral then turn the key. No gas.”

Chuck started the truck and sat looking at all the gauges. “You need your oil changed…like 3000 miles ago….” His tone was pure judgment.

“Thanks for the heads up,” Scott rolled his eyes. “That was the easy part. Now the fun begins.”

That was a lie. There was no fun in this. Not really.

Nothing made sense here. It was a foreign country compared to the automatic world of Striker. It was hell. Chuck made very little progress beyond starting the damn thing. Everything was ass backwards.

“Shit!” he exclaimed after making it no more than five feet from where they started and stalling it out again.

Scott gave him the look. “You choked the engine bud, she’s not going anywhere without gas.”

“I gave it gas!” Chuck whined, “There’s too many damn pedals!”

His uncle just shrugged. “You wanted this remember? Take a breath and try again. Clutch, first, gas.”

Success was elusive, so Scott called it a day.  
  


 Lesson 4-

“I don’t understand,” Chuck sighed after stalling out at the stop sign yet again, “I read up on the mechanics behind the standard engine. It doesn’t seem this hard!” He banged both palms against the steering wheel.

“Not everything can be as neat and easy as in a schematic Charlie,” Scott smiled. His nephew was great at the technical aspects of many things, but often had trouble grasping the application. Once he did however, well he would be dangerous. Scott had a sudden insight into the problem.

“Let’s try something a little different,” He turned off the radio and rolled down the windows. “How do you drive Striker?”  


Chuck gave him a weird look, “How do you mean?”

Scott grinned, “I’ve watched you, you drive by feel; you become a part of her don’t you? You let Striker tell you when to brake and when to use the gas, right? It’s an instinct even though the transmission does all the work; you are still listening to its guidance. This is the same thing, only you have more direct control.”

Chuck considered that. He did let Striker tell him what she wanted to do, he had never stopped to think about it, but that was exactly it. He could tell by the hum and pitch of the engine when she would be ready to shift, or needed that extra push to do so sooner in fast get away situations. Chuck knew every tone Striker made; he knew nothing about Uncle Scott’s truck.

Scott could see the little lights come on in Charlie’s head as he began to break through his literal roadblock. Maybe he wouldn’t be the world’s worst teacher after all. “Ready to try again?”

The boy nodded and started the engine again; he had that down pat anyway, and managed to get it moving in first gear. “Now listen. When it’s ready to shift up into second gear the engine pitch will change and that’s when you press the clutch and move it up into second.”

As the truck started to pick up speed Chuck listened carefully for the change. There it was, it was subtle at first but beginning to become a full pitched whine. He hit the clutch and shifted. There was a terrible grinding sound that made Scott flinch visibly, but the engine kept running this time and they broke the 45 mph bubble.  


“Good job champ!” Scott laughed, ignoring the grinding sounds. “See what I mean? It let you know when it was time to give it room to run.”

He decided that they had better end on a good note today.

 

Lesson 7-

“Now be careful Chuck, if you lose momentum and stall out it will…” Scott didn’t even get to finish his sentence before his warning became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Chuck yelped as the truck’s engine cut out and it started to slide backwards down the very large hill they had been attempting to scale. He panicked and tried to slam the breaks but that did nothing to save him. He hit that pedal again just out of habit/self-preservation to the same terrifying result as the truck continued to gather speed at an alarming rate.

The panic started to spread to Uncle Scott and he looked over his shoulder in terror praying there was no one behind them on the deserted back country road- there was no one. Good. They might escape death yet.

“Charlie what are you doing!?” he shouted.

“I don’t know!” Chuck flashed him a set of huge terrified eyes. “What do we do?!”

Good question. Very good question. Shit. Think Scott! Think!

But Chuck was already two beats ahead of him, scrambling to get the engine started. After two sputters it started, which was a shock given the upwards angle of the engine vs. the gas tank due to the steep incline they were still currently sliding down.

“Gun it! Gun it!” Scott shouted and banged his hand against the dash. Another car appeared in the rearview mirror. The gearbox protested very loudly as somehow, by the grace of some god, Chuck got his shit together and the truck started going forward at almost full speed back up the hill they had just spent what felt like an eternity on in reverse.

They finally reached the crest of the hill and Chuck pulled over to let the other car blaze by them. He was breathing hard as he put the truck in park and sat shaking. “Holy shit….”

“Kid, that doesn’t even start to cover it.” Scott clutched his chest for a second before booting Charlie out of the driver’s seat. Maybe they hadn’t been _quite_ ready for advanced principles like shifting on a hill.

No wonder Herc was going grey; this kid would be the death of them all.

 

Two Weeks Later-

Success was literally beautiful. Scott smiled to himself as he watched Chuck seamlessly shift gears at speeds exceeding 60 mph. The setting afternoon sun made his hair glow a darker copper red as it fluttered in the wind from the open window. As usual he had the radio up and was singing along, oblivious to his Uncle’s gaze. He had conquered standard transmission at last and his victory was glorious to behold.

Max was sprawled across Scott’s lap, drooling happily on the arm that wasn’t connected to the hand scratching behind his ears. This was pretty much perfection. Charlie flashed him that adorable grin that made him look just like his father, “Thanks for helping me Uncle Scott.”

“You’re welcome kiddo,” Scott reached over and ruffled all that red hair, “I knew you would get it…eventually.” Chuck rolled his eyes dramatically.

Chuck shifted from second to third and the truck made a god awful noise. He didn’t appear to hear it, but Scott cringed. Well, there was just one little thing he would need to do, then it would be perfection.

 

Herc looked up from the part list he was checking and frowned slightly as his brother flopped down in the chair opposite him. “What are you doing here?”

“My transmission is slipping like a son of a bitch.” Scott draped one leg over the arm of the metal framed chair.

“What happened to it?” Herc could see him settling in for the long haul. There went productivity.

“Your kid.”

Pause. Dear god. Herc held his head, “I told you _not_ to let him near it…”

Scott snorted, “Oh please, I know for a fact you can’t say no to that face why the hell should I? Besides you should thank me for taking this bullet for you…did you really want to teach him to drive _twice_?”

“No,” Herc muttered, knowing exactly where this was going.

“Exactly,” Scott leaned forward in his seat and grinned ominously, “So how I see it, the least you can do is pay for the repair.”

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I was desperate to learn to drive standard so I could have trailer privileges. My trainer had a huge ass Chevy standard to haul her also huge ass trailer around and that was my Holy Grail. I got a family friend to teach me stick in their much smaller shoddy old Ford Ranger. Good times. I did get that sucker to slide all the way down a hill completely stalled out. I hate living in a hilly state. I did pass and became a master with the truck and trailer, and driving with a clutch came in handy for tractors too. Ironically all three of my cars (AND all of my family's cars) were/are automatic. Whatever.


End file.
